Consumerism and Brave New World

Gustavo Contró Andrea Morales

Fernando Hernández

What does it mean?

Consumerism is the belief that it is good for people to spend a lot of money on goods and services. Also the concept that an ever expanding consumption of goods is advantageous to the economy.

When did consumerism begin?

Consumerism is the consumption of goods without a compelling or essential requirement. The concept of buying things because they make you feel good was developed in the 1920s in the U.S by Edward Bernays.

Why did it start?

It started in the U.S in the 1920s because it is supposed to make people feel good while buying things.

Who started it?

Edward Bernays helped convince women that they should have prettier dresses and more than one or two. He found clever ways to persuade people to go to department stores and automobile showrooms to buy things that would make them feel good.

Yes, because consumerism creates jobs. Our economy is based on people buying and selling consumer goods. The purchase of consumer goods provides companies a reason to be in business, and that provides employment. Also there is more More industrial production ,a higher growth rate economy and more goods and services available.

Is consumerism good for the economy?

● It is intrusive ● Manipulative ● Doesn’t meet our needs. ● Restricts our choices and lives ● Affects our worldviews and characters ● It’s unsustainable

How does consumerism affect us?

Consumerism in the book is used to keep the economy stable, like in real life and the people with more power consume more like in real life

How is related to the book?

“The idea was to make them want to be going out into the country at every available opportunity, and so compel them to consume transport.” !pg: 22

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“Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches” !Pg: 49

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“Stability," said the Controller, "stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability." !p.42

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● The average American uses 300 shopping bags worth of raw materials every week, an amount of food that weighs as much as a large car.

● We would need the resources of 3 planets for everyone on Earth to live an “American” lifestyle. ● People in the U.S. spend 3-4 times the amount of time shopping than people in Europe. ● Americans use 1/3 of the world's paper, 1/4 of the oil, 23% of the coal, 27% of the aluminum,

and 19% of the copper. ● 99% of the stuff people in North America buy is trashed within 6 months after purchase. ● The average American office worker disposes of 100-200 pounds of office paper annually. ● On average, Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - roughly 200 billion more than

needed and enough to feed 80 million people in other parts of the world. ● Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily. ● The average American buys 53 times as many products as someone in China. ● Americans drive about as many miles as the rest of the world combined .

Facts about American consumerism:

Consumerism is not bad but it is also not very good. It has many advantages like there is more industrial production a higher growth rate of economy, more goods and services available and more products for a better living style. The disadvantages are that it is manipulative, sometimes it makes us buy unnecessary things to make us feel good and sometimes it doesn't meet our needs. The way it relates to the book is that they convince people to buy products so economy is stable and the same thing happens in real life. !

Conclusion:

http://jonpeddie.com/back-pages/comments/the_birth_of_consumerism/ !http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~kelle20m/classweb/wp/page3.html !http://lifesquared.org.uk/content/problem-consumerism !http://www.paggu.com/business/world-economy/the-effects-of-consumerism/

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